India's main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is in a quandary. The party, which cobbled up an alliance of 17-odd disparate parties 15 years ago to rule for six years, many of them with just one member in the Lok Sabha, lower house of India's parliament, is now facing an open internal revolt just before the upcoming general elections.

The next general elections are crucial because they can write the political epitaph of many parties, small or big, national or regional. The BJP has been out of power for almost a decade now. If the rightist party driven by a Hindu nationalist agenda loses the race to power, it will be faced with an existential threat.

The BJP's main rival, the ruling Indian National Congress which heads the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, does not face a similar threat. The Congress party, at worst, will face the ignominy of getting voted out of power in the next elections, but it will continue to remain a potent force in the Indian political spectrum.

Thus the stakes in the next general elections are higher for the BJP than the Congress party. Events in the past few days have left the BJP rather wounded even before the main battle starts.

The most potent threat to the BJP is coming from its 17-year-old ally, the Janata Dal (United), the regional party of the eastern Hindi-speaking state of Bihar.

On April 14, the JD (U) gave an ultimatum to the BJP that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi who has emerged as the BJP's new media-savvy poster boy for the likely prime minister's candidature, was not acceptable to them. There are deep-seated differences between Modi and Nitish Kumar, the real power wielder of the JD (U), chief minister of Bihar. Kumar is another possible contender for prime minister, though he claims he's not interested.

A recent JD (U) meeting in New Delhi was significant for two reasons: what Kumar said and what he did not say. Kumar made direct attacks on Modi without naming him and made it clear that a person like Modi, known for anti-Islamic rhetoric and seen as the chief architect of the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat in 2002, would not be acceptable to his party.

What Kumar did not say was equally or perhaps more important. There were no broadsides against the Congress party. This was double fun for the Congress party, which has been wooing Kumar since its old ally, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), walked out of the UPA last month. The JD (U) has three more members of parliament in the Lok Sabha than the DMK, making it a tempting prospect for the Congress party.

Kumar has been baiting Modi for a long time, mindful of the considerable Muslim votes in his state. But now push has come to shove, as the political temperature is soaring in India. Many regional satraps, including the Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav who has been supporting the UPA government from outside, have predicted that general elections will take place this October or November.

The dilemma of the BJP is twofold. First, whether it will be wise to declare its prime minister candidate in the first place, considering that it would inevitably polarize the electorate and compel the sizable Muslim community to vote en bloc against Modi and the BJP. The Congress party would actually be mighty pleased if the BJP were to declare Modi as its prime minister candidate, because it is likely to be the single biggest beneficiary of the move.

In fact, Modi-as-prime minister may well be a political game changer for the scandal-tainted Congress-led UPA-II government which otherwise does not have much hope in the next elections on its own. The Congress party will not be wrong in thinking that if it cannot win the elections on the basis of pro-Congress votes, it can definitely do so on the steam of anti-BJP or anti-Modi votes.

The second dilemma for the BJP is even more acute. Will it make sense to enter the next elections minus an ally when it needs to be going in with a bigger block than before? This is a major deterrent for the BJP in declaring Modi as its prime ministerial candidate. In all probability, the BJP will embark on the upcoming battle for the ballot without formally naming its prime minister candidate.

The author is a New Delhi-based journalist-author and a political commentator. bhootnath004@yahoo.com